DESCRIPTION

readlink() places the contents of the symbolic link pathname in the buffer buf, which has
size bufsiz. readlink() does not append a null byte to buf. It will (silently) truncate
the contents (to a length of bufsiz characters), in case the buffer is too small to hold
all of the contents.
readlinkat()
The readlinkat() system call operates in exactly the same way as readlink(), except for
the differences described here.
If the pathname given in pathname is relative, then it is interpreted relative to the
directory referred to by the file descriptor dirfd (rather than relative to the current
working directory of the calling process, as is done by readlink() for a relative
pathname).
If pathname is relative and dirfd is the special value AT_FDCWD, then pathname is
interpreted relative to the current working directory of the calling process (like
readlink()).
If pathname is absolute, then dirfd is ignored.
Since Linux 2.6.39, pathname can be an empty string, in which case the call operates on
the symbolic link referred to by dirfd (which should have been obtained using open(2) with
the O_PATH and O_NOFOLLOW flags).
See openat(2) for an explanation of the need for readlinkat().

RETURNVALUE

On success, these calls return the number of bytes placed in buf. (If the returned value
equals bufsiz, then truncation may have occurred.) On error, -1 is returned and errno is
set to indicate the error.

ERRORS

EACCES Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix. (See also
path_resolution(7).)
EFAULTbuf extends outside the process's allocated address space.
EINVALbufsiz is not positive.
EINVAL The named file (i.e., the final filename component of pathname) is not a symbolic
link.
EIO An I/O error occurred while reading from the filesystem.
ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
ENAMETOOLONG
A pathname, or a component of a pathname, was too long.
ENOENT The named file does not exist.
ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.
ENOTDIR
A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
The following additional errors can occur for readlinkat():
EBADFdirfd is not a valid file descriptor.
ENOTDIRpathname is relative and dirfd is a file descriptor referring to a file other than
a directory.

VERSIONS

readlinkat() was added to Linux in kernel 2.6.16; library support was added to glibc in
version 2.4.

CONFORMINGTO

NOTES

In versions of glibc up to and including glibc 2.4, the return type of readlink() was
declared as int. Nowadays, the return type is declared as ssize_t, as (newly) required in
POSIX.1-2001.
Using a statically sized buffer might not provide enough room for the symbolic link
contents. The required size for the buffer can be obtained from the stat.st_size value
returned by a call to lstat(2) on the link. However, the number of bytes written by
readlink() and readlinkat() should be checked to make sure that the size of the symbolic
link did not increase between the calls. Dynamically allocating the buffer for readlink()
and readlinkat() also addresses a common portability problem when using PATH_MAX for the
buffer size, as this constant is not guaranteed to be defined per POSIX if the system does
not have such limit.
Glibcnotes
On older kernels where readlinkat() is unavailable, the glibc wrapper function falls back
to the use of readlink(). When pathname is a relative pathname, glibc constructs a
pathname based on the symbolic link in /proc/self/fd that corresponds to the dirfd
argument.

EXAMPLE

The following program allocates the buffer needed by readlink() dynamically from the
information provided by lstat(2), falling back to a buffer of size PATH_MAX in cases where
lstat(2) reports a size of zero.
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <limits.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
struct stat sb;
char *buf;
ssize_t nbytes, bufsiz;
if (argc != 2) {
fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <pathname>\n", argv[0]);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
if (lstat(argv[1], &sb) == -1) {
perror("lstat");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
/* Add one to the link size, so that we can determine whether
the buffer returned by readlink() was truncated. */
bufsiz = sb.st_size + 1;
/* Some magic symlinks under (for example) /proc and /sys
report 'st_size' as zero. In that case, take PATH_MAX as
a "good enough" estimate. */
if (sb.st_size == 0)
bufsiz = PATH_MAX;
buf = malloc(bufsiz);
if (buf == NULL) {
perror("malloc");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
nbytes = readlink(argv[1], buf, bufsiz);
if (nbytes == -1) {
perror("readlink");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
printf("'%s' points to '%.*s'\n", argv[1], (int) nbytes, buf);
/* If the return value was equal to the buffer size, then the
the link target was larger than expected (perhaps because the
target was changed between the call to lstat() and the call to
readlink()). Warn the user that the returned target may have
been truncated. */
if (nbytes == bufsiz)
printf("(Returned buffer may have been truncated)\n");
free(buf);
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}

SEEALSO

COLOPHON

This page is part of release 4.13 of the Linux man-pages project. A description of the
project, information about reporting bugs, and the latest version of this page, can be
found at https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/.